Flooded fields

Incredibly, I am STILL in Chiang Mai. I took a road trip this Sunday to check out Doi Inthanon, the highest point in Siam. I was told it would be a day trip. It was. It too over an hour for me to get to the start of the mountain, and then a couple hours to get to the top. I stopped to take this photo on my way to Doi Inthanon National Park.

Cooking in a boat

I ate at this place a couple times because it is close to my guesthouse and cheap. This dude climbs into a miniature longtail boat and cooks his noodles and meats for you. This is the kind of wierd image that you take for granted after being here for a while.

Chiang Mai night lights and the moat

A blurry shot taken from the back of the motorcycle (three on a bike! -- a piece of cake after doing this in Mae Sot for two months).

Faster and Faster

A tuk-tuk races under its propane power through the streets of Chiang Mai at night. There are no public buses around here so either you take a tuk-tuk or hire a motorcycle.

Friends at Smile Guesthouse

Solo traveller? You're never alone. Everyone in this photo left their home alone. Moron (an Israeli just out of the Air Force a week into his year of travels in SE Asia), me, Emily, Peter, Sonya (a German who had just arrived into Thailand for six weeks of travel), and Sandra (a Berliner 9 weeks into her 12 week holiday in Cambodia and Thailand).

Emily and Peter enjoying hot pot

That ringed pan has a dome in the center (with vents) for grilling foods. The shallow moat around the dome has a broth in which you can boil the vegetables, noodles, meatball products, tofu, and meat. You then dip the food into your sauce of choice. The green one has the sweet taste of cilantro, green onion, sesame, green chili's. The red one has red peppers. This cost 90 BHT a person. I love Thailand!

Hot cauldrons...

Eerie purple light in buckets. These were buckets of coals and ceramic brickets that were placed under the hot pot through a hole in the table. I can't imagine how great it would feel it the bucket dropped on our toes.

Pile on the goods...

How this works:
First you go to the long table and gather up an assortment of raw food on trays. There were raw meats, vegetables, glass and green noodles, seafood, and some meatball products. You bring this all back to your table to cook. All-u-can-eat. Mmmmm...

What is this place?

Hungry after an hour of fruitless searching for "Chinatown" restaurants in Chiang Mai, Peter, Emily, and I settled on investigating this popular open-air establishment just outside the moat. What does it look like to you?

"Have you ever given a foot massage?"

This is a pretty relaxing way to take a break from the shopping. It was 59 BHT for thirty minutes (about $1.50).

Buddhas watch over

There is something vaguely ironic about the ghostly images of Buddha presiding over the market of souvenir hawkers and the tourists.

The blur of shoppers

What I said in Bali applies to Chiang Mai (and Thailand). When you come here, bring empty luggage; you buy everything you need here and more. Bargain hard (shoot for half the starting price and work from there).

The Sunday Market again

A week has come and gone, and I'm still in Chiang Mai! Another visit to the Sunday market. This street is closed to motorized traffic from Tha Phae gate into the city center. There are places to eat, buy souvenirs, and get a massage in recliner chairs while your friends shop. An evening well-spent.

Khun Took at Brasserie

This guy is amazing. The Doors, Hendrix, ZZ-Top...this is classic rock from the 60's and 70's. Not (gasp!) the stuff from the 80's and 90's, which is NOT "classic". I wish you guys could hear this stuff. And he sings!

Traditional Thai dance?

Not a burlesque show, but a free traditional thai dance with live percussion band at the night market food court in Chiang Mai.

I'm still in Chiang Mai!

One of the dudes from Mae Sot became ill and has been recuperating in Chiang Mai, which has given me the perfect excuse to stay here longer. I also got my Laos visa this week. And now the weekend is upon me, so even more of a reason to stay in Chiang Mai!
So what is there to do here? Well, I've been eating good food -- a little Mexican, Italian, Indian, and Mediterranean. I've gone mall crawling, got a Thai massage (no shady business), and bought some souvenirs.
I also ventured into a strip club (for investigational purposes), which was an interesting experience. This is the shady part of SE Asian travel that I had heard about! The "club" has a stage with a bunch of women dressed in negligees dancing like the Robert Palmer girls. They are totally expressionless. It is not just a little creepy. They have numbers pin to them, and you can request one of them over to your table. You get to chat them up, and if you want to, you can pay the "bar fine" to relieve them of their responsibilities for the rest of the night. Then anything else that happens is up to you and the girl. No, I didn't get further than sitting in the corner with my friends, sipping orange juices, and not getting any love from the ladies. Was it the orange juice, the fact that I was the only Asian tourist there, or the fact that we didn't look like a bunch of overweight wankers trawling for ho's? I guess I'll never know. Back in the States, the strippers put on a pretty good show because that's the limit of the action. In Thailand, they don't put on ANY show, because they want you to buy them for the night. Wierd.
We also went to a couple bars where the bar girls would call out to my Americano friends but wouldn't give me any eye contact. Wierd how that is.
I already mentioned the numerous transvestites as bar girls and bartenders. Just like riding a motorbike in Thailand, the best policy is to play it cool, like Fonzie.
Okay, I realize this may breach the whole PG-rating of this blog, but this is the type of stuff my friends want to hear about. Go figure.

More sticker photos!

Six moods in the photo booth. Print this photo out and make a cube out of it; it's like a magic eight ball!

Stylin' sunglasses at the Central Mall

I'm thinking Bono during the Zooropa tour. We met Sandra, on her third (and last) month of holiday from Berlin. I used to think three months was a long time, but not anymore --it's a good start!

Cool lamps

I liked these lamps I saw in the market.

Why did I ever leave my room?

This is Emily's famous "Edwardian Whore shirt".

What the heck is this?

Looking at photos and nothing else...

Yet another visit to a hospital

Someone had to get their rabies vaccination, so we dropped by the Chiang Mai Ram Hospital. Here the registration ladies are giggling at something Ben wrote down.

Music at Brasserie

If you make it to Chiang Mai, and you like rock 'n roll, check out Khun Took's mastery of classic rock at Brasserie. It reminded that there really is rock 'n roll, not just whiny falsetto singing alterno/pop.

Sunday market in Chiang Mai

Starting at the east gate, this market extends down several blocks into the city center. Lots of cool stuff and great food.

Mall crawling in Chiang Mai

This is something that could never happen in Mae Sot. When let loose in a mall, the volunteers flocked to the lazy boy/back massager display at the department store. It was air-conditioned and clean.

Later on in the night, somewhere else...

Afterwards, Emily, Ben, Tap (Alex's Thai friend), Alex, and Heyman (teaching anatomy at the Mae Tao Clinic) headed to the Fashion club afterwards where Tap's brother was playing bass in the band.

Good times in Chiang Mai

Alex had spent a year in Chiang Mai five years ago teaching English. We were able to find some hotspots for partying with his local connections. This place had opened up this year. No other tourists were here.

Time for meditation

I spent a whole day trying to feel a single hair move under my nose, but all I felt were the mosquitos biting my legs.

Sticker photos

All the rage over Asia a few years ago, I'm not sure this ever caught on back in the States. We climbed into a photo booth at a mall and had these pictures taken -- all for 39 BHT!

Night Bazaar stalls

They sell pirated DVDs, CDs, Xbox & PS2 games here. They have name brand watches and clothes at rip-off prices. There are also a lot of hand-made goods here, as well as cultural and traditional clothing that only farangs wear, like my fisherman clothes.

Night Bazaar

A great thing about Chiang Mai is their night bazaar. Loads of stalls open up and they pretty much sell the same crap, so you can bargain hard and get that favorite woodcarving you've always wanted.

Asia is the land of technology!

Peter is posing by a display of hi-tech goods at a mall. This boom-box plays both sides of a record without having to flip it over. This was so ahead of its time, back in the day, that none of them made it to my neighborhood!

Well-behaved dogs

The dogs of Thailand. This is an impressive display of intellect and training. I watched the dog change seating positions so that it could look in the opposite direction. Most dogs don't exhibit such delicate training. The dogs of Mae Sot, for instance, attacked four or five volunteers during my stay there. They all proceeded to get their rabies vaccination (a relatively cheap series, costing about $50 as opposed to $1000 in the States). Even I got bit by a dog on Ko Pha Ngan. I chose NOT to get my rabies vaccination; no signs of rabies have set in yet!

The Land of Tuk-tuks

These propane-powered beasts flood the streets of Thailand. They emit a cloud of black smoke and rattle away with a rapid-fire "tuk-tuk" sound.

Jackfruit tree

There was this enormous jackfruit tree at the temple. Jackfruit, a fruit not unlike the durian, but with small spikes and green not brown, grows on trees like this. Imagine one dropping on your head!

Gilded Buddhas

This may not have been what Gautama Buddha had in mind...but with the blue sky and the sun reflecting off the gold, it was a pretty sight.

Gilded Stupa

It doesn't seem quite right for everything at the Buddhist temple to be gilded in gold, but there you have it.

The duality of man

Visiting a Buddhist can invoke different reactions in different people. Ben is contemplating the capriciousness of life and the frailty of human integrity in the modern world. He is pondering, "Can I live a life as an ascetic in a monastery?" Emily is wondering what monks wear under their robes.

The top of the stairs

They say a elephant was carrying this temple on his back and then DIED here, so they built the temple here. And the elephant's last words were to make this temple FREE to all Thai's like all temples, except farang's (foreigners) should pay 30 BHT to enter.

Stairway to the temple

This was a pretty nice hike up the stairs to the top, where the temple was located.

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is located in a nice valley with a muddy brown river.

Overlooking Chiang Mai

A couple days later we took the scooters up the mountain and got a great view of the city below.

Dinner at Drunken Flower

Our first night in Chiang Mai, we headed to Drunken Flower -- a place recommended by the Lonely Planet, and frequented by NGOs. There was a banjo-playing farang and a Thai singer -- good music. Alex ran into one of his friends from his stint in Chiang Mai five years ago -- this reccurred a couple more times during weekend.

Sunsetting behind the mountain

Another gorgeous sky. On the top of that mountain is a temple that we visited a couple days later. Here we were looking for Batman Begins. This is one of the malls in Chiang Mai. We ended up going to the spectacular new mall near the airport.

Stairway to the Stupa

This naga-lined stairway was at the temple and went up to a large stupa at the top.

No, guys, act like you're still sweeping...

I asked permission to take their photos, but they refused to continue sweeping. What can you do? I read somewhere that a lot of Thai males (most of them?) join a monastery at some point in their life. So, it is not uncommon to see a lot of kids walking around in bright orange robes. In the mornings, it is a beautiful sight to see lines of orange robes walking the empty sidewalks with their buckets, receiving food offerings from the businesses and people.

Buddha with his head

There were a series of tunnels at this temple, which made it not so boring. I'm really not into temples, but I like the ones that look like they're from Indiana Jones.

Wat U Mong

Our first destination after the gas station was to this temple on a hill. Besides hordes of mosquitos, there were inspirational sayings written in Thai and English nailed to the trees in the forest. There was also this collection of Buddha heads.

Where do we go now?

(Nice butt shot, Alex) It took us a bit to get started. We had to figure out where the gas station was, and how to get there. The inner loop around the old city center goes counter-clockwise, and the outer loop on the other side of the moat and brickwall goes clockwise. It makes for some interesting navigation. Driving in Thailand, you have to be relaxed, and not make sudden moves as the whole system relies on everyone NOT getting excited. You have to be like Fonzie.

Getting our motorbikes

We got into Chiang Mai around 1400. After getting lunch (I had some Mexican food!), we hired some four bikes. Riding sure beats walking in the heat!

Strange bedfellows

A cozy shot of Alex and Peter getting to know one another on the bus journey to Chiang Mai. Interestingly, I think homosexuality is expressed as cross-dressing a lot in Thailand. I was pretty skeeved out by this when I first arrived, but I've really gotten used to it. I played billiards with Alex and a couple of bar girls while in Chiang Mai. He was teamed up with a cute girl, and I was teamed up with a "girl" with man-hands. Whenever she gave me the cue stick, her hand would not-so-accidentally brush against mine, but I was like, whatever. That's Thailand, man.